I
am writing to you in reference to the sexual predator laws and the fact
that they need to be changed. I have a Brother who resides
in Iowa. He was in a relationship with a manipulative,abusive,drug and
alcohol addicted woman. He finally got smart and left her to better
himself.
During their relationship he had 3 children with her, all of which were
born
with Fetal alcohol syndrome. The children are the spitting image of
their
mother., she taught them well. My brother gave up everything to fight
for these
children, all the while she was on welfare, purchasing drugs with the
governments help.

The
children were finally placed in his custody because the mother was
caught doing drugs on hospital property. Meanwhile, my brother met and
married a wonderful
woman.

After
receiving custody my brother tried to get some counseling for the
children, to help with all that they had been through. He was told no
by every organization that he contacted. The
mother was having visits with the children; the children were really
acting out,
being disrespectful, and just downright bad. He caught them reading
naughty magazines and such.
After about a year, one of the children accused my brother of touching
her
privates, my brother was arrested and is now going to prison for 25
years. The
children were removed immediately and placed separately in foster care.
The children's mother died of a drug overdose 6 months later. He was
not
represented properly in court because he was indigent he received a
"free" attorney, his
attorney was also working on a couple of murder trials and was very
busy. He did not research the case, he did not submit any evidence that
we supplied,
and he just didn't care. The children are all now in foster care
together,
living a good life, they all have their own cell phones, they get to go
on
family vacations, and are actively involved in sports at school, when
my
brother had them he could not afford to do these things, the foster
family gets it all
free from taxpayers . The laws need to change, help the falsely
accused,
quit enforcing laws that allow children to get what they want by any
means.
After my brothers sentencing, which was 25 years and lifetime on
probation, his
children left the court house with flowers in their hands, laughing and
happy. This is
not typical behavior for children that just lost their only living
parent. We
believe the flowers were purchased by the count attorney. Please listen
to what I
have said in this letter, make changes, and help the laws work for the
people,
not against them. Our lives have all been affected by this., our family
is
in ruins. We will never have another holiday with my brother. Our
mother is 71 years
old, she will probably die while he is in prison. This is the life we
all
have to face now. While the children are in a happy life!, financially
assisted by us, the taxpayer! Thank you for listening.

Suzanne
[redacted surname]
[redacted
address and phone number]

by
Allen Huerefeld, an unsigned letter

For a number
of years I have
been a noise maker. I had a reason to fight what I knew was unfair
I fought against the Department of human Services and its policy of
protecting women involved in custody disputes with their ex's. I fought
long and hard to prove the point I was making- "There is nothing to
prove that a women is a better parent than a man" I raised hell with
DHS- writing
letters to congress, to the Governor of the state of Iowa, to the
President of the
United States, and of course several letters to local newspapers.
I wanted people to see what the "self perpetuating system of misery"
was doing
to the people they were helping.

My ex
was a professional client of DHS. She knew the system well; I am
surprised she was not offered a job through DHS. The government allowed
her to use the system to brow beat me during a period of unemployment,
and label me a
"deadbeat", because I fell behind on child support payments. Little did
I know that
while we were living together, in prior years, she was receiving
welfare for my children.
She did not use the benefits to "benefit"
the children, but to purchase drugs and
alcohol; she became an alcoholic drug user.
Her addictions caused us to separate, and I had to
leave my children behind, I thought
on my own I would have a better chance to get my
children. (We were never married,
therefore in the eyes of family law, I had to
establish my rights to my children), (even
though I was to pay child support).

I
had
to take her to court to fight for visitation of my children,
I did begin to receive visits of
the children, but only 2 of my children were allowed to
see me. My third child, my only
Son, was convinced by his Mother that her "sugar
Daddy" was his Father. I later had to
pay out the nose to establish DNA for my Son.

My
Daughters would tell me horror stories of abuse at the hands of their
mother
and her "men".
I would immediately report this to DHS, only to
have DHS call her and warn her that
they were going to do a welfare check. My Daughters
witnessed sex acts and drug deals
regularly but, DHS found no reason to act on any of
the complaints. One of my Daughters
was almost kidnapped during a drug deal that went bad.(
this came directly from
my daughter) But, DHS thought this was o.k., you see my
ex knew what she was doing.
When DHS would call and say they were coming she
would put away all of her bent
spoons, and needles, and any other drug paraphernalia
she had lying around, she would
return all of her empty vodka bottles and empty beer
cans, she would clean up and put
on her best act ever. She would tell the children what
to say, when to say it, and who to
say it too. Programmed by a master (I know this because
this type of conditioning was used
on me. I believed her too, which I had sought help on
my own after realizing how demented
she was)

When
any of the children were hurt and a small lie would not cover up the
incident, blame
would be redirected. One instance was actually
reported and founded against her, all
DHS did was offer her more help, counseling, not
treatment. Not only did she have the system
mastered, she knew how to manipulate people. She had
a knack of knowing what people
want to hear. She was a career alcoholic!

I
did
not give up my fight, but I did give up on DHS. I knew nothing would
ever come from
pursuing anything with them; they looked at me as If I
were a nuisance, because she had
told them and convinced them of this.DHS
would never wake up to the reality that it was
her and not me. Biology made me wrong, and them
right!

I
redirected my efforts towards the court system, and began to fight. Now
I was
being met in
court by the counselors that DHS had supplied her with,
the same counselors who saw her
as a good parent. I was shocked because DHS does not
normally involve themselves in
custody battles, but, she showed up in court with an
entourage of DHS paid counselors, and
therapists to show how well she was doing as a mother.,
Throughout this whole time, no
one ever thought it was odd that my Son did not live with
me or her, but her elderly boyfriend?,
I was not surprised when I lost in court, I was
defeated in court by a pro with a
large government, funded support group, a support group
paid for with my tax dollars, all
of our tax dollars!

I
started to redirect my efforts at not just her, but the system that
created
her. I used every resource
I had available, driving myself and my wife into
bankruptcy, to fight for a better life
not just for my children, but for all children.

I
worked at a local Science museum and had major contact with the
community, on
an average
day I would have 1 on 1 contact with 400 children
and their parents. Every day I would
see the happiness in their eyes; this is all I wanted
for my children, and myself. I used
my position to aid in my fight, and provided support
for the joint custody bill that the
governor signed into law. I met personally with the
governor and shook his hand and thanked
him for signing the bill, but told him that we still
had a long way to go. I was dedicated
to not only protect Fathers rights in a state that
labels them deadbeats, but I wanted
to correct a system that allowed mothers not only to
use children as pawns, but as a
source of income.

My
fire died out one day when DHS called me during a visit with my
children and informed
me not only to NOT drop off my girls, but to pick
up my Son and the kids stepsister. My ex had gotten caught doing drugs
at the
hospital, while being treated for a condition
caused by the drugs, even though DHS stated she
was drag free. At this point I thought
my fight was over, I no longer would have to
struggle day to day to be the Father I
always wanted to be., little did I know
that my fight
had just begun.

The
angels that I had fought so hard for had been damaged by the system,
the system
that should
have protected them. All the years of living
unsupervised, with no rules, had taught
them to be disrespectful, and that lying was a way to
get what they wanted. Their grades
at school were not the best because they had no study
habits. Rather than finding out
how to get the answer to a question, all they cared
about was getting the answer by any
means. The girls were disrespectful, dishonest, and out
of control, but, my son was worse.
He had lived his 7 years being able to get whatever
he wanted, whenever he wanted
it. His mother's sugar daddy had spoiled him by
giving him all he wanted and If the
girls had something he wanted, he took it. Fights were a
daily routine; lack of respect was
a fact of life for my kids. The fight I had now was
considerably more than any other fight
I had. I had drained my finances and now had 4 more
mouths to feed, one child that I had
no biological right too, but DHS had to put her somewhere. All the
while I was
still paying
child support so the state could still provide income
for my ex. She continued to receive
ADC until she was able to get SSI.
I repeatedly informed DHS of her situation only
to be treated like I was in the wrong.

We
asked DHS for help, all they would do is provide the children with 1
hour of
play therapy
a week, we not only needed financial help, but
medical help also. DHS turned us away.

I
finally decided to get a lawyer to convince the head DHS worker to
provide some family
counseling also. Things did get a little better, but
then the children would have a visit
with their mother and we would go back to square one.
Everyone involved agreed that
visits were hard on the children; they were stressed
when they came back from visits with
her.

The
children's grades improved but life at home was less than pleasant. My
oldest Daughter,
who used to be my best behaved, was changing before our very eyes. She
was slowly
becoming her mother. She had her mannerisms and was
acting and talking just like
her, she would fight and argue about things even when
she knew she was wrong. My once
sweet angel had become the Devil incarnate, lying and
manipulating the truth, manipulating
her siblings to get what she wants. We would
report her actions to her "worker"
but nothing changed, they only got worse. I
would have to leave work to break up
fights. I found that I could not leave her alone with my
wife and the other children. If I had
to go to the store, or anywhere, she would have to go
with. I had to adjust my hours at
work so I could be home when my Daughter got out of
school but then my wife had to deal
with the fights in the morning. When school got out I
had to take her to work with me.
"Daddy's girl" had begun to rebel from Daddy.
(With plenty of coaxing from her Mother)!

One
night when things were calm, My Daughter lived for havoc, so she was
not
content that
things were calm, she told my wife that I asked her to
have sex with me! Of course this
created an issue but we were able to see why she was
acting out so much an mentioned
this to 2 of the many social workers, she had
gotten over her latest bout, and improved
her behavior for a while. Her actions had earned
her a reward. We allowed her to
stay the night at a friend's house. She was scheduled to
be picked up at a certain time, when
I got off of work I went to the house where she was
supposed to be, only to find the house
empty with no one around. We began to persistently
call and after a while we finally
got a hold of her and we went to pick her up. Summer
vacation was just about over
and I had planned for her to visit with a counselor at
school in one week so her punishment
was one week of being restricted.

Earlier
my eldest Daughter was seeing a therapist at the Abbe
center for some problems she
was having when she lived with her Mother., this
therapist would visit her at school. She
seemed to progress with that type of care and I was looking forward to
it
starting again.
Anything would be better than the hell I was living.
The children and their behavior
had stressed my relationship with my wife. We were
financially ruined, with the cost
of all of the court hearings. When the children came to
live with us all they had were the
clothes on their backs, we had to buy all new clothes,
shoes, school stuff, and everything
that goes with children. To top it off in the 2
years that the kids were living with
us, I was still paying full child support. We were
having problems at the Science station
and were wondering when I would be losing my job. We
were stressed and strapped.
My wife's health was slipping, she has diabetes.
The stress was killing her and I,
she was hospitalized, and I had a stroke. We were being pushed beyond
the
limits of endurance.

Friday
night was a tradition at our house, no matter what we had family night.
All participated,
even if you were on restriction. We would all
stay up late and watch movies, or T.V. until
everyone fell
asleep. My eldest was the last one up and she said to me "remember
when I said something that made mom mad at you? well,
If you don't let me off
my restriction I am going to say it again"

I
lived the next few days in a daze. I did not know what to do, or how to
react.
I love my children,
and my family was all I lived for. I could feel it
all slipping away. My wife and I had
lost nearly everything, now I felt as though I would be losing her too.
I tried
talking to
her but the children, their mother and all the stress was
too much for her and she became
ill. I could see she was slipping away again into ketoacidosus
(a severe diabetes condition).
I had hit the kids before with the
confrontational measures. When one of them wanted
to run away, I packed her bags, when one wanted to
mow the yard, even though he
was smaller than the mower and could not push it, I made
it his chore. Confronting them
and making them realize that they could not do what
they thought they could made them
realize what was real and not real. When I mentioned
the "in your face" confrontation
to DHS workers they thought it was great. In
sleepless desperation I began to
ponder confronting my eldest with her latest game.
Everyone else was sound asleep and
she began asking me questions. I took a piece of paper
out and wrote across the top of
it "write, don't speak". She said
"why" and I did not respond driving home the point that
I would not listen. I wanted her to write her threat,
if she just spoke it again, I would have
no proof. In her silence I began to write a draft, how do I confront
such claims. I wrote
it out and then read it. I realized I was way too
tired to be trying to think up something
so I went to bed. I threw away the paper and
crawled into bed. I was awakened quickly
with loud stomping upstairs. This was nothing new so
I went upstairs to see what her
new problem was, I was used to not going to sleep until
after she was asleep. She was ordered
to go to bed and I waited until she was asleep. The
next day things were normal until
she began to act up again. When I sent her to her room
she called my wife in there. My
wife came out and went back downstairs and apparently dug into the
trash and
found the
draft. All hell broke loose! I ended up leaving the
house; I went to the park and wrote my
wife a note trying to explain things.

When
I returned to an empty house I guess I just snapped. I had lost
everything that
had meant
anything to me. I do not remember much beyond not
wanting to live.